We are calling on students, staff, friends, community partners, and anyone who would like to see Adult Education continue and not go away. Join with the California Council for Adult Education (CCAE) as we fight to keep funding in adult education in California.

It's easy to get involved and make a difference. It's free and there are no strings attached.

Please promote sign up through as many people as possible in your sections and chapters.

Click the button "Join the Fight for Adult Education" on the CCAE website.

As of May 10, 2012, we have over 492 supporters! Keep spreading the word!

If you like Berkeley Adult School, please join the fight to save Adult Education. Complete this quick simple survey NOW https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SupportAdultEdinCA


The starship Enterprise was a metaphor starship Earth, and the vision was that the strength of this starship lay in its diversity.--GEORGE TAKEI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQAmQYc2X6A&feature=share

Both my mother and my father went to Adult School and graduated from High School. All of their children went to college and graduated.--Edward James Olmos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnY7hmYNMAw&noredirect=1

CCAE STRONGLY OPPOSES the Governor's Weighted Student Formula. We need your immediate assistance! Please submit your letter of opposition today! (sample attached)

As you may know, the Governor's proposed Weighted Student Formula (WSF) would consolidate most categorical programs and would no longer provide funding for adult education as it would all be consolidated and provided to districts on a weighted basis for K-12 students only. This ultimately leaves adults in need of basic skills, GEDs, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, short-term career technical training, and more without any options. The populations most affected by this will be underserved and disadvantaged adults who are in desperate need of these services.

With the Governor set to release his May Revise Monday, May 14th and the Legislature gearing up to make decisions related to the future of adult education as it relates to the WF budget proposal, the next few weeks will be critical to sustaining adult education in California. It is essential that our voices be heard in Sacramento .

OPPOSITION LETTERS - SEND IMMEDIATELY!

Please mail, email, and fax letters to your Assembly and Senate Representatives urging them to oppose the Governor's Weighted Student Formula and to protect adult education. In addition to sending letters, please place calls and schedule meetings (member or staff) to discuss the importance of protecting adult education and our opposition to the Governor's proposed budget plan. Please ask your staff, family, friends, students and more to also send letters and place calls. Additionally, the following members are members of the various ethnic caucuses who have long been champions for adult education and those that rely on our programs and services. For those of you within the following members' districts, CCAE encourages you to double your efforts.

Identify Your Legislators (Senate & Assembly)
See http://192.234.213.69/amapsearch/
***Important to note that in order to find "your" legislators (Senate & Assembly), you must enter your HOME address. (This information will not be collected or retained; it is just purely to correctly identify who your representatives are based on your voting address.)

Asian & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus
Assemblymember Warren Furutani, Chair
Assemblymember Mary Hayashi
Assemblymember Mike Eng
Assemblymember Paul Fong
Senator Ted Lieu
Senator Carol Liu
Assemblymember Fiona Ma
Assemblymember Richard Pan
Assemblymember Mariko Yamada
Assemblymember Das Williams


Legislative Black Caucus

Senator Curren Price, Chair Assemblymember Mike Davis
Assemblymember Wilmer Amina Carter
Assemblymember Holly Mitchell
Assemblymember Isadore Hall
Assemblymember Steven C. Bradford
Assemblymember Sandre Swanson
Senator Rod Wright

Latino Legislative Caucus
Assemblymember Ricardo Lara, Chair
Assemblymember Luis Alejo
Assemblymember Michael Allen
Assemblymember Charles Calderón
Senator Ron Calderon, Vice Chair
Assemblymember Nora Campos
Senator Lou Correa
Assemblymember Gilbert Cedillo
Senator Kevin De León
Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes
Senator Ed Hernández
Assemblymember Roger Hernández
Assemblymember Ben Hueso
Assemblymember Tony Mendoza,
Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod
Senator Alex Padilla
Assemblymember Henry T. Perea
Assemblymember John A. Pérez
Assemblymember V. Manuel Pérez
Senator Michael J. Rubio
Assemblymember Jose Solorio
Assemblymember Norma J. Torres
Senator Juan Vargas

CCAE's Legislative Advocate has prepared a sample letter for ease of use (attached). We encourage you to personalize the letter with your district-specific impacts and perspectives. A copy will also be downloadable from the website very shortly. Be sure to copy membership@ccaestate.org or fax a copy to 866-941-5129 so we may present hard copies while lobbying the issue.

We greatly appreciate your help generating as many letters, calls, and meetings as possible. In order to prevent the passage of this harmful proposal that will ensure the elimination of adult education in California, it is critical that you take action and fast! Thank you for your time and assistance on this important matter. Be sure to let as many people as possible know about the option to join the fight to keep funding in adult education. Click here for more details <http://ccaestate.org/> .


STRENGTH IN NUMBERS!

WASC Visiting Committee Report

Our WASC Accreditation process is now complete, and the Visiting Committee's report is available on our website at: http://bas.berkeley.net/PDFs/WASC-BerkeleyFinal.pdf


Thanks to our entire staff for their participation, and to the Visiting Committee for their review and findings. We are confident and hopeful for a renewed 6 year term. 

More news and updates at Berkeley Adult School on Facebook

April 9, 2012

The Honorable Jerry Brown

Governor, State of California

State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814

Members, California State Senate

State Capitol

Sacramento, CA 95814

Members, California State Assembly

State Capitol

Sacramento, CA 95814

RE: Adult Education on the Brink of Elimination

Dear Governor Brown and Honorable Members:

On behalf of the California Adult Education Administrators Association (CAEAA), the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) and the California Council for Adult Education (CCAE) we implore you to take action to save adult education in California. As you know, categorical programs such as adult education have experienced severe cuts - if not outright elimination - under the flexibility proposal enacted as part of the FY 2008-2009 budget.

Since 2010, over 30 adult schools have closed and over 40 have had their budgets cut by more than 50%. This month, the Los Angeles Unified School District school board will vote to close its adult education program - the largest in the state - to offset a nearly half-billion-dollar budget deficit. The increasing economic pressure on school districts to balance their budgets has put them in the untenable and unfortunate position of pitting one program against another. When forced to prioritize instructional services for youth or adults, the choice is obvious and painful.

At its peak in 2005, nearly 1.4 million Californians were enrolled in adult education programs ranging from English as a Second Language (ESL) and citizenship to GED and basic skills to workforce and career technical training. The majority attended adult schools operated in 294 K-12 districts while approximately 60,000 students attended the noncredit basic skills programs in 45 community college districts. These educational programs play an integral role in providing the means and opportunity for these students to prepare themselves for successful entry into the workforce, support their families and contribute to the state’s economy growth.

In utilizing adult education programs, they become contributing members of society and responsive and involved parents that translates into tremendous budgetary savings in the child welfare and public safety arenas by lessening their involvement in child welfare services and decreasing the likelihood of committing crimes or reoffending - prevention at its finest.

The bottom line is that adult education is too important to allow it to be eliminated. While we can appreciate the difficulties school districts are facing, the success of K-12 students depends on the success and engagement of their parents and community. In many districts, K-12 students' parents are the ones relying on the dwindling adult education programs the most. Furthermore, the consolidation of other K-12 categorical programs will fund supplemental services for students (K-12) who will always have a seat in a classroom. When adult schools close, however, there is no place for adult students to go for these basic skills and programs -this leaves them disenfranchised with no options.

With the intense focus on deficit reduction in California as a result of year-over-year budget shortfalls, the very real economic benefits derived from the state’s public investment in adult education and workforce development programs have been overlooked and decimated. Numerous studies have shown that even in difficult economic times a preemptive focus on adult education actually saves governments money by reducing societal healthcare, public assistance and incarceration costs. Adult education also improves and expands the nation’s available pool of human capital by helping motivated but under educated people achieve gainful employment in today’s increasingly high-tech and global job market. Adult education and career technical training are potentially the most cost-effective tools the state has to recover its economic health.

Adult education is an investment in the future of our state and our families, as research shows that better educated parents raise better educated, more successful children, who are less likely to end up in poverty or prison. In this regard, March 12-15 was proclaimed Adult Education week in communities throughout the state. However, the proclamation is bitterly ironic. While we celebrate the success of adult education, others begin to mourn its impending demise if nothing is done to stop it. We strongly urge you to remove adult education from categorical flexibility and reinstitute it as its own standalone education program.

We look forward to working with you to accomplish this goal and develop a framework that maintains the Governor’s desire for local control and sets up an accountability system to ensure successful outcomes for adult education students that will ultimately help pull the state out of the current economic downturn. If you have any questions or would like to discuss these issues further, please contact Dawn Koepke with McHugh, Koepke & Associates at (916) 930-1993, CAEAA and CCAE’s legislative advocate or Laura Preston ACSA’s Adult Ed Council Legislative advocate at (916) 329-3807. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Cyndi Parulan-Colfer

President

CA Adult Education Administrators Assoc. (CAEAA)

Rocky Bettar

President

Assoc. of CA School Administrators (ACSA) Adult Ed

Christian Nelson

President

CA Council for Adult Education (CCAE)

cc:

The Honorable Tom Torlakson, Superintendent, CA Department of Education (CDE)

Department of Finance

Legislative Analyst’s Office

Ms. Sue Bird, Advisor, Office of the Governor

Mr. William Ellerbee, Deputy Superintendent, Special Services & Support Branch, CDE

Ms. Patricia Terry, Adult Education Office Administrator, CDE

Mr. Gordon Jackson, Director, Coordinated Student Support & Adult Education Div., CDE

Association of California School Administrators (ACSA)

Members, California Adult Education Administrators Association (CAEAA)
Members, California Council of Adult Education (CCAE)

The California Adult Education Administrators' Association (CAEAA) is a statewide organization open to administrators or management personnel who work in, or support, adult education programs. Association activities are dedicated to increasing public awareness of adult education services and to developing and promoting legislation to further the positive effects adult education has on individual students as well as on state of California’s social, economic, and political systems.

Since 1943 and as the largest professional organization in its field, the California Council for Adult Education (CCAE) has worked to serve all levels of the adult education family including teachers, classified employees, students and administrators. CCAE sponsors and engages on legislation and budgetary matters that affect adult schools, adult education, adult students and communities. It also serves as a resource, providing professional development opportunities for all of its members.

The Purpose of the ACSA Adult Education Council: To identify and study issues relating to adult education; To recommend legislative positions to ACSA and advocate for legislation that advances public adult education statewide; To actively enhance and promote adult education’s business, industry, and the community at large; To plan and coordinate professional growth opportunities for administrators of adult education program.

We have posted our Accreditation Self Study Report. A Visiting Committee representing the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) will be at our school from April 22-25, and we hope they will validate our report and offer us critical feedback to maintain our excellent standing with WASC. Check it out!

Berkeley Adult School Self Study Report submitted to WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) 

A message from Dawn Koepke, CCAE & CAAEAA Legislative Advocate, regarding legislative and budget activities:

Over the last few months CAEAA and CCAE have made great strides in educating the Legislature and Administration about adult education and the devastating impacts of flexibility. We're continuing to garner support for adult education that will help us in the fight against permanent categorical consolidation as proposed by the Governor. In this regard, we've identified AB 18 (Brownley) as an alternative to the Governor's plan in that it addresses a number of the Governor's goals, but acknowledges the need to treat adult education differently and set it apart from other categoricals. That said, much work remains to be done to ensure that this differentiation ultimately translates to removal from flexibility. As we've discussed with the Department of Education, Legislature and Administration, merely recognizing it as separate is not sufficient to ensure it continues to exist and necessitate the differentiation. This is a good first step, but we continue to have our work cut out for us.

In working on the budget and consolidation front, we've also been working to keep adult education at the forefront through legislation. As you know, we introduced AB 2240 with our dear friend and champion Assemblyman Mike Eng as a means to keep adult education in the spotlight. We had hoped to move forward with a bill that would not be controversial, but provide benefit for the field. This turned out to be far from easy and in the end Assemblyman Eng was concerned about the ability to move our proposal that would have codified best practices for collaborative partnerships between adult education programs, Workforce Investment Boards (WIB), and Community Colleges – partnerships that are already happening in many localities throughout the state and helping to minimize duplication of effort, provide clearer pathways for students and more. It became clear that such an approach would be an uphill battle with possible referral to three separate policy committees. Furthermore, the time and effort that would be necessary from Assemblyman Eng, his staff and from CAEAA and CCAE’s lobbyist would ultimate detract from the time and resources necessary to be spent impacting the budget, flexibility and consolidation discussions. It was ultimately decided that this wasn’t the best time or approach for this year with so much on the line relative to flexibility.

Despite the setback with AB 2240, we have identified a number of additional legislative vehicles introduced this year with which to continue to promote adult education and further our efforts in the field. Vehicles include bills such as SB 1401 (Lieu) focusing on workforce development, many English as a Second Language proposals, career technical education vehicles and many more. We’ve already begun to engage on these bills and are looking forward to supporting members’ efforts in these areas.

The legislative process can be a daunting process and nothing is ever a sure bet; however, CAEAA and CCAE are doing all they can to impact the budget discussions and address flexibility. We will continue to keep you apprised of developments. Stay tuned….

Dawn Koepke

Berkeley Adult School on Facebook

Data report....

from OTAN...

Little Hoover Commission Recommends Adult Ed Move to Community Colleges

The Little Hoover Commission is an independent state oversight agency created by the legislature and composed of five public members appointed by the governor, four public members appointed by the Legislature, two senators and two assemblymembers. Its goal is to promote "economy, efficiency and improved services" in state government and agencies.

The Little Hoover Commission has released its report on the California Community Colleges, Serving Students, Serving California: Updating the California Community Colleges to Meet Evolving Demands. The Commission makes a number of recommendations for improving student outcomes, one of which is that adult education be removed from the K12 system and placed within the community college system. It recognizes the importance to the state of offering adult education services, and notes that many districts are now redirecting adult education funds to other purposes, as allowed through the current budget flexibility enacted in 2009. The report recommends that before adult education "capacity is lost, the state should transfer responsibility for educating all adult learners to the community colleges, and with it, all funding previously earmarked for Adult Schools." (Letter to the governor and legislature published at the beginning of the report, with no page number)

The report refers to the survey conducted by the Montebello School District to provide figures on the fate of adult schools across the state (p.75) and provides examples from Oakland Adult and Community Education, San Juan Unified School District, San Jose Unified School District, Anaheim, and Los Angeles Unified School District. It also mentions current instances of effective local collaboration between adult schools and community colleges such as Allies4ESL. It then describes the continuing education programs in the San Diego Community College District and City College of San Francisco as examples of how adult education should be provided (pp. 80-2).

Patrick Ainsworth and Debra Jones, then administrators over adult education at the California Department of Education, testified before the Commission on June 23, 2011. Their testimony is available online, as is video of all testimony heard by the Commission.

Interestingly, the report includes in a sidebar the recommendations of the California Budget Project from a report published in May 2011, which recommended that the state provide clear goals and a delineation of functions for all providers in the adult education system providing basic skills instruction, including the adult schools and the colleges. This approach would maintain the current multi-provider system, but resolve the conflicts that currently exist among different segments.

The Community College Board of Governors released a similar report making recommendations to improve the system back in October (read more on OTAN). The Board of Governors report, often referred to as the Student Success Taskforce, reached many of the same conclusions as the Commission report. It does not directly recommend that the colleges take over adult education, but devotes a chapter to improving the education of basic skills students, in which it recommends that "state leaders need to determine if the current flexibility over K-12 adult education funds is consistent with state economic and social needs and whether these funds should be rededicated to serving basic skills needs. They should also determine whether these programs would best be placed in the K-12 or community college system and provide funding commensurate with the task." (p. 45).

Read the Commission report to learn more and to see the other recommendations. The report may be ordered or downloaded from the Commission Web site.